


Tick

by chocochurros



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dark, Depression, Exhaustion, Poetry, Routine, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 05:30:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12698349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocochurros/pseuds/chocochurros
Summary: A bit of an experiment in onomatopoeia, assonance, and internal rhymes in freeverse. Finished May 25th, 2017.





	Tick

_Beep, beep, beep,_ the alarm,  


Summoning for a day you can’t put off.  
_Creak, crshhh,_ ** _stay_** _,_ the whispering of your bed,  
Warm and wanting.  
The soft, familiar pattern of your blanket  
Comforts you cozily in your cocoon,  
Calls for just one more moment of relief.  
But _beep, beep, beep,_ that blasted, blaring buzzing,  
Slicing through the sluggish stupor,  
Can’t concede any comfort for your tired bones,  
Not yet recovered from yesterday’s exhaustion,  
Compressed and worn from the depression of work.  
Stirred into action once more,  
Unwilling, unwanting, unwarm.  
  
Your cognizance cries out in pithy protest,  
Already stressed at the mere prospect of what is to come,  
The thought of all that must be done,  
As you start to dress, one thing at a time.  
One thing at a time is never enough -  
_Chika, chika, shua, shua,_ you brush your teeth,  
The bristles rough against your dragon-breath gums.  
You’re running out of toothpaste -  
One more bother, one more thing to do,  
Think you, through your morning haze,  
The last few days have slurred together,  
But better than missing them altogether.  
Your limbs are leaden as you lay the toothbrush down,  
Begging back to the beckoning bed,  
But you have work to do.  
  
_Beep, beep, beep,_ goes the alarm in your head,  
Hellish in relentlessness,  
Echoing the ringing in your ears from moments ago.  
But worse still comes the _tick, tick, tick,_  
Through the thick slough kindled  
By your chronic lack of sleep.  
It creeps in on you, this unyielding clock,  
Its eyes on you, waiting for the inevitable  
Slip up.  
_Tick, tock, tick, tock,_  
Counting down the hours,  
Puts a price on every drop of mortal time.  
A price too high to stay in bed,  
Rationing the road ahead,  
A price too high to skip a day,  
Waste precious time clean away,  
So, instead, you find a way  
To push through your zombified state.  
  
Caffeine’s your friend,  
It pumps the juiceless husk left of your brain  
Back up into some semblance of its original form,  
One that functions well enough  
To continue through the blurring days -  
Defeated dripping down the drain -  
No time to stop and smell the roses,  
Because the road continues past,  
Uncaring and unyielding and unwarm.  
The road demands a sacrifice -  
  
And _hiss,_ the rain,  
_Pitter-patter,_ rippling puddles,  
_Hiss,_ the bus, rolling to claim its passengers,  
Responsible adults like you  
Who go to do important things;  
Things worth the cost of exhausting time,  
Things worth the leaching of your enjoyment, each  
And every day, a little more gray,  
The pale, sad gray which shines upon the world today,  
As the bus rolls up to whisk you away.  
  
.....Right?  
  


  
_Tick, tock, drip, drop, What I'd give for a moment to stop_  



End file.
